


The Misdirect

by thealexandriaarchives



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Backstory, Con Artists, Episode: s04e12 Criss Angel Is a Douchebag, Fluff, M/M, Rare Pairing, Street & Stage Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealexandriaarchives/pseuds/thealexandriaarchives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was just a kid when we first met. All I knew was how to cheat at cards. Charlie got me out of more scrapes than I can count. Hell, I would have been dead by the age of 20 if it hadn't been for him." - Jay, (Criss Angel is a Douche Bag)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Misdirect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seagullsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seagullsong/gifts).



***

**Misdirection**

**\- noun**

**A form of magical deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing in order to distract its attention from the truth or operation of the trick.**

***

The first time Jay meets Charlie, he's about to get his damn fool self killed.

Interpret that how you will. It's true any way.

It's coming up on the tail end September of 1956, and Jay's currently in some little dive in Atlantic City trying to scrape together enough cash to get to Vegas.

Or maybe Santa Fe. Anywhere warm and far away would do.

He's eighteen, or at least that's what he told the three men he's currently trying to hustle at blackjack.

Two of them are easy marks, he spotted them as soon as he came in. A clean cut business man on a weekend trip, more interested in eyeing the waitress that keeps bringing him martinis than watching Jay's deals, and a burly man with an enormous beard, already a few too many beers put away to focus on his cards.

Unfortunately, just as he was getting them warmed up with a few easy hands, a third gentleman invited himself to the table, pulling up a seat with a nod. Business Suit and Burly Beard just nod back and murmur distracted greetings and Jay unhappily deals him in.

He's got sharp eyes. Jay doesn't like it.

He keeps up his pattern, though. Lose Three, Win Two, Lose One, Win One, Lose Four, Win Big...

Halfway through the second repeat he can that tell the new guy's catching on and fumbles the deal, spraying the cards across the table.

Panicking, he hurries to pick them up before Sharp Eyes notices the twin Aces of Spades clearly lying face up in front of him.

He doesn't make it.

A minute later, he's backing up against the far wall of the bar, all three men and a couple that he scammed last week closing in on him.

He sees an opening, between Business Suit and the guy he got a Rolex off of last time he played Poker here.

He could make it to the door, but all his winnings are still back on the table, and they're all he's got if he doesn't want to sleep on the street tonight.

Maybe if he brushed past Business Suit on the way out he could pick his pocket as he ran for it.

As he's trying to remember whether the man kept his wallet on the right or left side, there's a sudden flash of light by the empty bar.

The waitress screams and drops her tray as flames suddenly burst up impossibly high along the length of the counter. Cursing, the group hurries over to douse the flames, Burly Beard even sacrificing his latest beer to quench the fire.

Not one to risk a window of opportunity, Jay dashes for the door, only pausing a moment to grab his cash and glance sadly at his scattered deck.

Ah well, he can build another one.

He runs four blocks down and another two over before he ducks into an alley off of a motel to catch his breath.

Pulling out the roll of bills, he starts to count it, hoping somehow it'll have multiplied enough to get him out of this town already.

He's running out of bars.

“You know,” a voice drawls from the end of the alley, “I went to that bar tonight hoping to cause a brawl and get myself killed. Imagine my surprise when I find out someone went and beat me to it.”

Jay jumps, quickly stuffing the money back into his pocket.

“Sorry, what?”

A man was lounging against the alley wall, looking far too comfortable for the speed and distance Jay had just covered.

He had thick brown hair and sea green eyes, with a peculiar scar or birthmark over his right eyebrow. He wasn't as tall as Jay, but he radiated the cocky casualness that only comes from having a ridiculous amount of money or power, and directed the world around him with a smug, roguish grin that was clearly designed to charm people into liking him, and that Jay didn't trust one bit.

“You're welcome, by the way. Took five sheets of flash paper and a shot of very good whiskey to start that fire.”

“That was you?”

“Mm-hmm. And so I think you owe me a drink to replace it, don't you?”

He nodded at the ill-concealed bulge in Jay's pocket. “Looks like you can afford it now.”

Ten minutes later they're in another bar, far classier and not Jay's scene at all. No backroom poker games in this joint.

The man, who still hasn't introduced himself, sits down at the bar and orders two shots of something that'll eat up a third of Jay's winnings for the night in one go.

As the bartender turns to pour, he fixes his attention on Jay.

“Where'd you learn to deal like that? That has to be the worst method for cheating a schmuck out of his money I've ever seen. And I've seen them all.”

Annoyed, confused and now a bit offended, Jay snapped back.

“No one taught me. I heard about it, so I sat down and figured out how to do it. And who the hell are you?” He frowned. “I don't remember seeing you at the bar. How do I even know you are the one who... who... whatever that was?”

To his continuing annoyance, the man just grinned and looked intrigued.

“I'm in the same boat as you kid, I'm just a bit better at not drawing attention to myself.”

He extended a hand. “Name's Charlie. I'm a professional magician and conman myself, not that the two are much different.”

The bartender brought their drinks, and Jay reluctantly shakes the man's hand. If he's paying for a ridiculously overpriced drink, he's at least going to stick around long enough to enjoy it.

“So you taught yourself, eh? Not bad. Explains why your technique's a bit clumsy. Just needs tightening up. You have a deck on you?”

“No, had to leave mine.”

“What, that rigged 60 card thing? You'll never beat anyone with a lick of sense with one of those. Here, we can use mine...”

And as the drinks keep coming, (at slightly lowered quality, at Jay's insistence), Charlie teaches him tricks.

Card cheats, at first. Teaches him how to improve his own system, them some of the classics. He can't quite get the hang of counting cards, but that's probably because he can barely add on paper, let alone in his head.

Then basic coin tricks. The French Drop, Sleeving, the Miser's Dream...

Proper topics for patter. How to use showmanship to deflect attention. How to fake a riffle shuffle so the cards stay as they are.

Jay thinks it's fascinating. He never really bothered with magic tricks before. Never saw any money making potential in it, but the deft, nimble way Charlie's hands work over the cards, the slow, careful way he does it again to show Jay how it's done...

It's a true art form.

Around two a.m. the bar closes and kicks them out.

The two men say their goodbyes, and Jay heads for the hostel where he's been staying the past few nights.

When he gets there, he pulls out the few meager dollars left from then night's spending spree, and out falls a smart brown wallet.

Inside, it contains four hundred dollars in cash, pictures of the Businessman and his wife, and a note.

Next time I'll teach you to be less obvious when eyeing a mark. - C

He leans back on the ratty, threadbare bed to stare at the dove shaped water stain on the ceiling, and thinks that while a 'next time' isn't likely to come, but he really wouldn't mind it if it did.

***

The next time comes in early April the next year.

He's running a Three-Card Monte game outside one of the new theaters in Las Vegas, keeping up a rolling patter to the well dressed crowd pushing through to the playhouse.

“Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Step on up and play the game!”

A young woman in an ermine stole gets a dollar off of her husband and volunteers.

“All right! Now little lady, you just have to keep your eye on the queen. Keep all your attention on it. One pretty lady to another, eh?”

He stopped. “All right, where's the lady hiding?”

She shyly pointed to the one in the middle. Jay flipped it over.

“Ho ho! Success! Well done, miss! Well done indeed. I can see you're quite good at this. Double or nothing?”

She nodded eagerly, blushing lightly.

“All right. Pay close attention. Don't want to blink and miss her. Eyes on the queen at all time... even if I do... this!”

He flipped a card in the the air, and landed it facedown while palming the Queen, before fixing the girl with a charming grin.

“Now, where is she?”

“On the left.”

“You're sure about that?”

She nodded. “Positive.”

“I wouldn't be so sure about that, Ma'am. I think the queen's on the right there.”

The crowd parted to let the new speaker through.

Jay blanched slightly when Charlie appeared, but reattached his grin.

“You here to help out, sir?”

“Yes I am.” He turned to the lady. “I'd really advise choosing the one on the right, miss.”

“Oh.” She looked unsettled. “All right then. The one on the right.”

Jay reached for the card, carefully switching it with the one from his sleeve with a flourish.

“And the newcomer is right! Well done, sir! Ma'am, that's four dollars to you. Would you like to try, sir?”

Charlie grinned. “Don't mind if I do, in fact.”

Jay had never grifted with a partner before, but he knew the basic techniques. Let Charlie win a few rounds, even the more complicated ones, get the crowd's faith back, and split the cash later. Easy Peasy.

A few rounds in though, it become obvious that's not what Charlie has in mind.

He wins round after round, relentlessly. When the money starts getting big and the audience a little too interested, Jay pull out every trick, misdirect and piece of showmanship he knows. He palms, switches, flips, fakes movements, and draws attention away from the card. Every time Charlie points out the Queen with little to no visible effort.

When Charlie finally cleans him out, the crowd erupts into cheers, a few of them coming up to shake his hand as Jay clears up, before dissolving back into the street.

“You've gotten much better. Almost had me a couple of times.”

Jay cracks a grin and gathers up his cards. “Well, almost ain't enough to pay for squat. Seeing as how you've bankrupted me, I think you owe me a drink.” Folding his table and tucking it under his arm, he straightens and turns to face the magician.

“After all, it looks like you can afford it now.”

Turns out Charlie's playing at one of the new casinos that are popping up all over town, a short act with a few illusions and a tired looking local girl as an assistant.

Jay pulls up a table close to the stage, orders a drink on Charlie's dime and sits back to watch the show.

It's the first real magic show he's been to, and while the theater's not that full, there's a boy sitting off to the right, and Jay thinks the look on his face every time Charlie pulls off an effect is the greatest thing he's ever seen.

He thinks it probably mirrors the look on his own face.

Afterward Charlie drags him to another club, and grills him for an hour about the performance.

“How'd I do the King's Levitation?”

“Your right shoe was empty?”

“Correct. But you have to make sure you stand at a forty-five degree angle the whole time. Why?”

Charlie's show runs five nights, and Jay's in town until he can replace the money Charlie got off of him.

At the end of it, Charlie heads off to Boston, and Jay keeps heading west, thinking about starting his own show in Los Angeles, confident he'd never see the crazed magician with the sea-green eyes again.

***

The fifth or sixth time this happens, Jay's stopped questioning how Charlie keeps finding him.

Jay's learned most of the tricks Charlie has to teach, and even started up his own little one man show. It's slightly less likely to get him run out of town than grifting, and if people don't cough up enough when the hat comes round, well...he's gotten better at pickpocketing too.

They spend most of their time together discussing prestidigitation in back alley bars, or wandering the streets of unknown cities arguing about escapes.

They usually end up in Charlie's hotel room, with Charlie demonstrating new tricks and Jay trying to work out how they're done and replicating them.

He always gets them, until Charlie grins that insane little grin of his and pulls something fantastic out of his hat.

“How did you do that?” Jay nearly begs one night in Tampa, after Charlie pulls one hell of an invisibility illusion, knocking over vases and photographs all over the hotel suite.

He never gets any answer but an enigmatic grin and reminders of the rules of the Magician's Game.

They've forgotten who owes whom money by this point, and eventually it seems only natural they start traveling together.

Their shows change because of it, obviously. Sometimes complimenting, sometimes competing as Jay starts to develop his own ideas.

Once or twice they start a brother act, but it's clear no one else enjoys them half as much as they do, grinning at each other and their own brilliance from across the stage.

Other magicians start seeking them out, asking for help. They laugh most of them off, but help out the ones with actual talent, like Vernon.

And really, it's inevitable that the world notice them, eventually. They're destined to be two of the Greats, why wouldn't it?

They're booked to play Radio City Music Hall back to back in '73, but Charlie pulls out at the last minute and won't tell Jay why.

He brings down the house, and backstage Charlie kisses him for the first time, just as the Rockettes are rushing into position to go on.

After that, they get their picture in the paper, and three of the Rockettes want to take them to dinner at the Ritz, but the night never gets any better than that.

***

Jay finds that photo again half a decade later, and calls Charlie over to have a look.

“We've lived like kings, Jay. We really have.”

“I'll say. You don't look like you've aged a day since then.”

Glancing up from the clipping to Charlie and frowning, he continues.

“Actually, you don't look like you've aged much at all since I first met you.”

“That's all up to you. The last time I really felt old I met you. You keep me young, kid.”

Jay snorted. “Yeah, where as I look exactly how I feel. Like I've aged twenty odd years.”

Charlie frowned. “Hey now. Who cares how you look? You and I? We're on top. And we're gonna stay there for as long as we want.”

The younger magician smiled indulgently. “Can't have everything, Charlie.”

“Why not? We've got it now.”

“Yeah, I suppose we do. But it has to end eventually. Every show's gotta close.”

The grin returned, untouched by the years. “Nah. I think I can change your mind on that one day. You're getting your stage sayings mixed up. It's 'The show must go on', Jay. And what a show it is.”

“Really," Jay replied skeptically. "Well, I'm not convinced quite yet. But that'll be one hell of a closing act if you could.”

“Oh, just you wait.”

Jay sighed, and leaned back against his lover. “I want to slow down, Charlie. You're right. We've got it good right now. Can't we pause to enjoy it for a while? Maybe get a house, settle down?”

Charlie pursed his lips. “Well, I guess it wouldn't be all wrong to slow down for a while. Just a bit, of course.”

“So an apartment and lots of scrapes in back alley bars, then?”

“Sounds good to me.”

***

The next week is the first time he remembers seeing a gray hair on Charlie's head.

He probably just hasn't been paying attention.


End file.
